New Mexican Mountain - Poem by Robinson Jeffers

I watch the Indians dancing to help the young corn at Taospueblo. The old men squat in a ringAnd make the song, the young women with fat bare arms, and afew shame-faced young men, shuffle the dance.

The lean-muscled young men are naked to the narrow loins,their breasts and backs daubed with white clay,Two eagle-feathers plume the black heads. They dance withreluctance, they are growing civilized; the old men persuade them.

Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed;the beating heart, the simplest of rhythms,It thinks the world has not changed at all; it is only a dreamer,a brainless heart, the drum has no eyes.

These tourists have eyes, the hundred watching the dance, whiteAmericans, hungrily too, with reverence, not laughter;Pilgrims from civilization, anxiously seeking beauty, religion,poetry; pilgrims from the vacuum.

People from cities, anxious to be human again. Poor show howthey suck you empty! The Indians are emptied,And certainly there was never religion enough, nor beauty norpoetry here ... to fill Americans.

Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed.Apparently only myself and the strongTribal drum, and the rockhead of Taos mountain, rememberthat civilization is a transient sickness.